The Book Of Regret Poem by Jack Otterberg

days come to die here— in the belly of our unsaid words. I used to believe every person had an absence. a dying voice that only survived small lapses- like forgetting your identity at the grocery store. now I know that sound of foreignness is really the sound of kindredness. the two opposites are really the same.

every night I wait by the doorstep for my dog to come back from the dead. his stabbing bark could warm me on these nights I forget my veins aren't blue. I want to be alone with him. so alone I remember what it meant to live without words. but I must hear his crisp bark crack the air— just to know his ghost is coming to warm the bed.

I should've been kinder to those who were unkind. but the book of regret writes his name on the gravestones of those who never came to him. it's inevitable.

every human belongs to confusion. not knowing the own shade of his soul, nor aware of the streetlight's whispers— 'you are human because you don't belong. and that is what makes you belong.'

thus I'll sit at the doorstep, persisting in perplexed waiting, so I can say good dog, good dog! one more time. I think it relieves me from the many instances I ignored his panting at the door.